Wherever You Are
by Colorslander
Summary: [SasukexSakura] Sasuke is being Sasuke and Sakura is being Sakura.


**Wherever You Are**

Splintered

----

The sun rose in the East, just like it always did. People went on with their lives- mothers bickered with their children, fathers went to work, kids went to school, shinobis trained. It was a normal day. Team 7 set to work on their normal mundane jobs until the sun started to set. Nothing out of the ordinary.

Many things irritated Uchiha Sasuke, but the way people acted today infuriated him to no end. Because today- was the anniversary of his family's massacre. But as much as he despised the people who went on with their normal routine, he hated the pity looks from the few that remembered.

Pity was not what he needed. What he needed was...

His train of thought was derailed when he arrived at the door of his house that resided in the former Uchiha estate. It was true he did not live there anymore, but every year on this day his feet forced his unwilling body there. It was stupid, Sasuke decided with a clear strong Uchiha declaration. There was nothing behind those doors; he could open them and the only site that would greet him was the empty walls of the long abandoned house.

It was the about the same time of night when he first discovered the bodies of his families, a sickening dread spread through his stomach. And tonight also strangely looked like that particular night; every star in the sky had hid behind a veil of dirty blue. The only light originated from the rays that bounced off the moon's decayed surface. It felt dead that night, the air was dry and eerily still.

It was almost as if he found himself back that same day, eight years older. An emotion stirred in Sasuke- one that he tried to push down long ago. Uncertainty and fear.

Damnit, he was a shinobi, a direct descendant of the fierce and proud Uchiha bloodline, he would not be defeated by the echoes of a distant memory he had long tried to forget. His hands rose towards the doors but he did not slide them open.

_"Open the door, open the godamned door!"_ His mind screamed but his mouth did not utter a sound. It was so quiet that he could hear the soft patter on the ground behind him. He knew who it was, he wasn't pleased.

"Sasuke-kun," a light hesitant voice drifted in the air.

"What the hell are you doing here?"

His voice overflowed with agitation as the stinging words staccatoed out of his mouth, but he did not move to face the culprit, Haruno Sakura.

"I heard about what happened. I knew it was today."

"So?"

"I came."

"You wasted your time."

"That's ok."

The conversation was running around in circles and it was highly irritating. Sasuke didn't want her here. He didn't want anybody here. Her mere presence had disturbed him enough that he couldn't even envelop himself in his usual silence. He tried to open the doors to his house so that he could enter and be alone, but his mind willed his body still.

"You should leave."

"You too."

"This is none of your business."

"I know."

"Why are you still here?"

"Because you are."

_Two corpses drenched in their own blood, sprawled out on the floor. The entire world was tinted black and red. _

He didn't need that, he didn't need to be in that position ever again. He didn't need people to be close to him.

"Stop following me around like an idiot," he raged, "I don't need you and your annoying habits to haunt my every steps."

Sakura was silent, but Sasuke knew she was struggling to find words to say. He decided to beat her to it. An outpour of insults came through- his normal impassive demeanor slipped as a rampage of anger that formed itself into hateful words slipped.

He didn't fully realize what he was saying, but he remembered; "annoying, useless, and weak." The barrage of insults continued to march in the silent night, getting sharper and angrier so that his body picked up on the mood and began to shake.

He ran out of breath and inhaled the cold night. The insults lingered in the hateful atmosphere in a period of silence before he finally said;

"Go away."

"Sasuke-kun..."

The frown that seemed permanently etched into his handsome face deepened. She was still there, after all of that. Didn't she hear what he had to say?

"I don't want you bothering me, leave me alone!"

But no footsteps sounded.

"Damnit go away! Leave me alone!" _I don't want this pain ever again. I don't want people to like me. Can't you understand that?_

Sasuke tuned a strict 180, "Don't you understand?"

His will to speak escaped when he saw Sakura's face. He knew she understood and absorbed everything he said, the pain in her eyes told him so. Her head hung limp and ashamed and the edge of her eyes there were tears.

"Sakura..."

After everything, she was still... there.

She wasn't pitying him, she wasn't hitting on him, or giving him advice. She was just there.

Sasuke's face slipped from anger to passive, the fury had dissipated. His body sagged on the door of his family's house, and slowly slunk down to the ground. The night regained it's deathly quiet, and Sasuke still found himself unable to walk inside his old house or go to his apartment.

Sakura cautiously approached him, and without so much as a whisper, fell beside him. The two lied in silence, staring at the little sites of the old Uchiha estates that were visible in the flimsily moonlight.

Time crawled on and the two simply sat. Sasuke at the steps of his past, and Sakura right there beside him. The night finally pressured Sakura into a drowsy state sandwiched between sleep and consciousness. Her body could no longer keep her upright and her head lolled to the side and settled on Sasuke's shoulder.

Sasuke looked at peaceful face and rosette petal hair sprawled on his shoulder while pondering if he should shift her head away from him, but decided against it. It would simply wake her up, and he wouldn't want her to sleep on the ground…

... or leave.

"Sasuke-kun," her voice drawled in a tired stupor, " I always thought you would feel cold, but your warm."

With her final observation she cascaded into her dreams. Sasuke soon followed suite, his own head dropping on Sakura's. They slept the chilly night away. And for the first time in many years, Sasuke didn't have nightmares.

xxx

The ending has nothing to do with the rest of the story. But I lost inspiration in the middle of it (as is my five month baby cousin was here and drooling on my shirt). At first I thought Sasuke was a bit OOC but Sasuke does tend to cross between homicidal angry $ to passive cool guy. And Sakura is one of the few people who can calm him down in his angry stage.

I need to stop writing angst because it's bad for me. And there are so many Sasusaku angsts it's crazy. But what else can you do. Oh well, this was for Twinbells from livejournal because I've been saying that I would write one but never do. There was another better written one but it didn't save when it was suppose to and… eh.

I use the word cascade a lot. It's a very nice word.


End file.
